Shooting the breeze

We had some time to kill down at the flight school (see this post) as well as chatting about everyday stuff, Bob and I took some time to discuss some more aviation related things. Lots of people coming and going, even a couple of flight tests scheduled. Little bit of hanger talk, lots of discussion about the sucky and surprising weather. Mostly people peering at the computer screen, tracking the latest precipitation on the radar and trying to figure out just how the hell the winds were blowing in the opposite direction to what you’d expect given the configuration of high and low pressure (we never did!) All I know is that lake effect is a bitch.

Bob was hanging around to see if things would pick up for his next student, I took advantage of this to corner him for some questions that had been bugging me. I’d been looking through some stuff on the internet (quelle surprise!) and running through some of the ground portion of the flight test questions. I knew that I was still a little hazy on the paperwork requirements. I mean we’d covered the theory in class a long time ago but I didn’t recall if I’d ever actually seen some of the paperwork. I probably couldn’t tell you what a Certificate of Airworthiness looked like. So we pulled the paperwork reqs apart one piece at a time. Looking at real world examples, talking about what invalidates what and so on. It’s not as complicated as I feared (and as some of the books make out).I’m a lot happier that I could talk an examiner through why my plane is legal to fly.

I know I’m jumping the gun a little bit here and Bob assured me that we would have spent some time going through this before my flight test but once I realise that I don’t know or am not comfortable with something it eats away at me. I feel unsettled about it. I don’t cope well with knowing that I don’t know something. The paperwork thing particularly eats away at me. The first item on the checklist for my walkround is "paperwork / POH on board." At the moment I just look behind the seat and see if the general lump of stuff is there. Everytime I do it a little voice niggles at me, telling me that I should actually be looking at it!  I absolutely believe that this was on Bob’s future agenda. I just pre-empted the whole conversation a little.

We also talked through some scenario based questions, I spend a lot of time thinking about “what if” and I like to talk these through with whoever happens to be around. Sometimes it’s Bob, sometimes RTH. We discussed the decision making processes around executing a precautionary landing. I came to the astute conclusion that it was better to have to phone the owner and tell him his plane is at another airport, than have to tell him his plane’s in a field!

Oh and when I left Bob was flicking through the Flight School’s Pre Solo (practice area) quiz to ensure that we’d covered everything on it. This is the quiz I have to pass before they’ll let me take a plane out to the practice area on my own. Obviously this’ll be coming my way soon.

Eek!